I'm so glad I read this novel before the end of the year. It turns out to be one of my favourite reads of 2024. The story, set in Detroit and the DC area, follows the family drama of three strong-willed women, each portrayed with brilliant character depth by author Susan Rieger. There is newspaper editor Lila Pereira and her three daughters, focusing on the youngest, Grace, who feels abandoned by a mother whose ambition always takes priority over her family, and Zelda, the mother Lila never knew. While Lila is content to let the past remain a mystery, Grace longs to uncover the truth about her Grandmother. Did Zelda really die in a fire in a mental institution, or was it a rouse to escape an abusive marriage? Would a mother really desert her own children for her personal safety, leaving them with the ramifications of a violent home? Despite these tough questions, 'Like Mother, Like Mother' is a very enjoyable, light read that poses significant questions about mothering and 'fathering,' how generational trauma impacts the relationships between mothers and daughters, the stories we inherit and pass down without our knowledge, and the sacrifices women make as mothers to survive their own truths and build a life where they can flourish from the secrets of the past. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Random House Publishing Group for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. I knew I would love it from the first 10 pages, the way it depicted a death in a lighthearted, non-tragic manner. I loved following the two main characters, Lily and Grace, as they navigated similar circumstances and still judged each other's choices. And then the final act (no spoilers here!) is everything you hope it will be, without the sappiness that you might expect. A wonderful book.

I loved this story about 3 generations of women. Zelda, Lila and Grace are each a product of the environment in which they are raised. The character development in this story is amazing and I absolutely love how the story tied together and ended. Highly recommend for anyone who loves a family saga!!!

The old saying that you will grow up to be just like your mother is put to the test in this story about mothers and daughters. There are three women - grandmother, mother and daughter. Each has their own story to tell and truth to reveal and the way the author peels back the history leads to an interesting and intriguing read.
Lila's mother is committed to an asylum when she is just a child which leaves her without a loving mother to guide and love her. She knows very little about her mother but is told that she was very ill and died while in the asylum. Mother is forgotten and Lila moves forward to become a very successful editor with a loving husband and children she barely has time for. She lives for her success and as her young daughter, Grace grows up she yearns for a mom like all the other kids have. Grace and Lila are never close and as the years go by Grace develops a strong resentment towards her famous mother. She eventually decides to write a tell all book about life with her mother - a not so flattering tale. But how can you write a story about someone you don't really know or understand? The shift in the novel to discovering the past helps both Grace and Lila reanalyze their relationship and really get to know each other and in turn get to know Lila's mother.
I enjoyed this book even with the unlikeable characters. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the advanced copy in return for my honest review.

Like Mother, Like Mother, is the kind of book you really dig into-- there are quite a few characters, & they're complex-- you know, like real people. The mothers in the story are deeply flawed, but not unlikable, and the children they create have their own layers. I can't say that I couldn't put this book down, but I never wanted to abandon the characters, either. There wasn't a lot of big drama, but the quiet dramas kept me interested to see how it would end.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book!

Ultimately found myself not gripped by these characters. Made it just to 60% and wasn't connected. Writing was well done, cover was excellent - but the story is just not for me.

Thank you Netgalley for an arc of Like Mother, Like Mother. I have never heard of this author before, but by the synopsis of the book I wanted to check it out. I'm so happy I chose to read this. Not only was the cover beautiful, the story was very moving and I really enjoyed it. I rated it 4 Stars.

Huge thank you to @prhaudio for advanced audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review. This amazing audiobook would be the perfect book club book. It is exactly the kind of book that requires discussion!
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Three generations of women are now haunted by their past. Lila overcomes a difficult childhood and rose to fame as the editor of the Washington Globe. She didn’t have a relationship with her mother, who she was told died in a mental asylum. When she becomes a mother herself she does the best she can but how much is enough? Even though Lila is present, her youngest daughter Grace feels abandoned. Lila’s job is her top priority and Grace feels resentful. this is a fascinating portrait of complicated women and nothing is as it seems. I was totally sucked into this one.

A messy multigenerational family drama? And one that centers on the newspaper industry? Sign me up! I loved this book about newspaper editor Lila Periera and her daughters growing up in the DC area. The mystery of the novel is about Lila's mother, Zelda - did she really die in a fire at a mental institution or was that all a ruse for her to run off? Lila's youngest daughter, Grace, tries to unravel the mystery and i was hooked from the very beginning

If you like "generational trauma" themed books this is for you! A bit heavy at times but compelling characters and story lines. It focused on women who at once held, drive, ambition, love, curiosity, and everything in between. It also had a mini mystery at its heart. I didn't connect with every characters at all times, but I found them interesting enough to follow their stories to the next step. recommend!

Oooh a family drama, my favorite. I loved the idea of this book, a powerhouse newspaper editor, her equally strong willed daughter, and some family secrets to round out it all out. And there were many parts of the book I loved, not just the idea but the execution, the characters. It was an interesting story, the plot unlike other similar stories in that the characters seemed really fresh and compelling, it got me excited when I started it, thinking, yes…this is gonna be good.

But something irked me about the writing. I think it was the dialogue. It felt so choppy. I kept thinking, that’s not how people talk. It was super direct and quick, matter of fact. Maybe that’s just not how I talk, but it came off feeling unrealistic. I really liked how the story ended, and it was page turning in its build up, but overall I wasn’t blown away.

3.5 stars

Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger might be in my top 10 books for 2024. It's a multigenerational novel that focuses on the unforgiving media industry. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

"𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓-𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒆. 𝑨𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝑰 𝒂𝒎."

This was an interesting story, one that made me think about the role mothers play in the development of their children, specifically daughters. Is the absence of the maternal “nurturing factor” to blame for a woman’s inability to nurture her own children? Not always, but it can make it hard to know how to fill that role, with no example. Particularly in a home where a bully of a father rules supreme, an environment absent of warmth. I had initially thought the story would be about women of the past, shoved into insane asylums, where they silenced them for good. The author certainly explores that sort of evil but really, it’s about power driven Lila Pereira’s rise to success as the executive editor of The Washington Globe and how it affects her daughter Grace. As a child, with her mother Zelda carted off to the insane asylum and purported by her father Aldo to be dead, he labels his children ingrates as he slaves away on the GM assembly line to put a roof over their heads. Aldo’s father beat him regularly, which he tells his daughter Lila, ‘Made a man out of me’. Lila tells her husband Joe, it made a man out of her too, such beatings. The chapter Motherlessness shows how quickly Aldo purges Zelda from their lives, erasing all traces of her from the home as he installs his own mother, Bubbe, into their house. Bubbe is hard woman herself, having had a life without choice, without her own mother too. Beyond divulging to Lila that Zelda had crying fits, was lacking as a wife and mother, and shock therapy didn’t help, she doesn’t want to say much more. She does, however, admit to her shame that her son Aldo was a beast to Zelda. Aldo’s beastly behavior extends to his children, but if Zelda had a smart mouth that led Aldo put an end to her challenging ways, his daughter Lila will escape her rotten childhood and never look back, and always be a force he cannot destroy.

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Grace grows up blaming Lila for the hole in her life, despite a father, Joe, who is just as involved as any tender mother could be. She swears to him she will become a raging, wrathful writer; he thinks she is too hard and bitter about Lila. At the age of twenty-seven she published “The Lost Mother,” months before Lila’s retirement, inventing an affair between the characters who resemble Lila and her publisher, Doug. Rather than enraging Lila it upsets Joe. Joe, who is made to look like a fool, with a cheating wife. What if people believe it’s real? Nothing within is as shocking, just a strained mother/daughter relationship and Lila is stunned that Grace didn’t investigate her grandmother, just made up a book based on what ifs. Grace says it is her “intuited truths”. Grace accuses her mother of wanting Zelda to be dead, because then she doesn’t have to wonder where she is now, what happened.

Joe’s daughters react to Lila’s hard work ethics and lack of attention in different ways. The twins have each other, it is Grace who feels she was robbed of something. It can be said that a woman who choses her career over being the devoted parent is always considered suspect, at least in the past. She was a stellar example as a sister, she took on all of Aldo’s rage and abuse so her siblings wouldn’t have to bear it, much like a mother would have done, had she been there. It was in her past she decided not to live in fear and go for a life of her choosing. Growing up she didn’t entertain much curiosity about Zelda, her mother was just gone. She didn’t have time to lick her wounds and yearn for Zelda, she was too busy dodging her father’s hatred. Even Bubbe couldn’t be a stand in worth a damn, saying her life was just ‘one long regret.’ Zelda is a void, that is all, why feed it?

It is when Lila is dead that she gives Grace a quest, find out what really happened to Zelda. This means confronting Aldo, if he is still alive, and questioning her Aunt Clara. It isn’t a story of happy endings, sometimes the answers raise more questions or leads us to painful truths. It is about survival, choices and entrapment. How much does it take for a woman to be free to live her life as she wants. There are often casualties when it comes to escape. Is it better to stay or go? What if you can’t give your children what they need?

All the characters are full of life, sometimes selfless and often selfish. Lila is a gutsy woman giving the best she can. Sometimes we are like our mothers, even without realizing it. An engaging read.

Published October 29, 2024

Random House

The Dial Press

Like Mother, Like Mother was one of my most anticipated books of 2024. I found myself thoroughly enjoying this book and not wanting to put it down once I picked it up. As the title describes, this book focuses heavily on themes of motherhood and in certain aspects generational trauma of motherhood. I enjoyed the strong female characters and relationships in this book and enjoyed how Lila did not apologize nor try to be anything that she wasn't.

I will add a note that this book sometimes lies heavy on the politics, and I think could turn off some readers.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC: The book is an exploration of mothers and generational trauma. The main protagonists are Lila--the daughter of an abused woman who disappeared in her childhood and Lila's youngest daughter Grace who experienced far less trauma but fixates on it far more. Lila overcomes her abusive childhood to become a hugely successful newspaper editor and have a happy marriage. She's a hands off mother to the extreme. Her youngest daughter Grace writes a book excoriating Lila. Grace ultimately searches for Lila's missing mother and in doing so answers a central mystery and matures. I found the story and plotting well written. Lila's aversion to mothering felt a bit hyperbolic but it would be tolerated in a man. There are myriad characters--sometimes a bit confusing, but it made for a compelling story.

4.0. Really enjoyed this multigenerational novel. Covers many issues, including domestic abuse, abandonment, and mother/child relationships, among others. Very entertaining, witty, and sobering. It got a bit slow in parts but overall it was a good read. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and unbiased review.

Like Mother Like Mother is a darkly humorous and poignant novel that explores motherhood, female identity, and the complex bonds of family.

The novel weaves together the stories of three generations of strong women: a rebellious grandmother, a struggling mother, and a daughter navigating the pressures of adolescence. Each character struggles with societal expectations and the weight of inherited trauma, ultimately finding their own voices and forging their own definitions of success and happiness.

The author's use of dark humor is both refreshing and insightful. It allows for an authentic exploration of the messy realities of motherhood, from the day to day to the deeply personal, without ignoring the truly difficult subjects.

The character development is nuanced and compelling. Each woman undergoes a transformative journey of self-discovery, confronting their pasts and embracing their own unique paths. The novel challenges traditional notions of family, emphasizing the importance of defining family in a way that works for each individual, regardless of blood ties.

Like Mother Like Mother is a powerful and thought-provoking read that will resonate with anyone who has ever grappled with the complexities of family, identity, and the ever-evolving definition of motherhood.

Absolutely no complaints about this book! It had everything that makes a novel thoroughly entertaining for me. Likable characters doing interesting things, juicy details, a bit of a mystery, an evil villain and one semi evil villain, and a story that never lets you down. What more can one ask from an author?

Family secrets will always come out. Following generations of strong-willed women, the secrets start when Lila Pereira was 2 years old and her mother was committed to a local Detroit asylum. From there, Lila's father abused her and her siblings and always maintained that her mother was dead. On her deathbed, she asks her youngest daughter, Grace, to find out what happened to her mom. Following in her mother's footsteps as a renowned journalist, Grace takes on the challenge and begins to dig into the truth. However, sometimes, it's best to not go back, because then how can you look forward to the future.

Going into this one, I wanted a bit more thriller on this story. Instead, I felt I got a lot of unnecessary family drama. I couldn't get into their story and felt that it was drawn out too much. It didn't help that I wasn't a huge fan of the characters. I always say this and it's true, but literary fiction is not for me.

I LOVED this sweeping story about mothers and fathers, and does childhood trauma shape your whole life, including your children's lives? I thought the characters were well written, and even if you wanted to shake them sometimes, you understood their motivations. At first, I thought there were too characters introduced, but she expertly wove them all together and I loved seeing it come together. Sometimes it felt a little long, so it wasn't necessarily a perfect book, but it is one I adored and will share with others!